I am a Neuroscience PhD Candidate from the University of British Columbia, but I recently relocated to Toronto to continue my doctoral work at the Campbell Mental Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

 

Females experience a higher lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s disease and show greater neuropathology and cognitive decline compared to males, and these differences are further exacerbated with the possession of APOEe4 alleles, the greatest genetic risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease. To better understand how Alzheimer’s disease affects females, female-specific factors like parity (pregnancy and motherhood) are important to consider. As such, my research is focused on understanding sex differences in how APOEe4 genotype impacts the aging brain, and further, how parity contributes to these relationships in females. In particular, I am interested in examining cognitive, neuroplastic, and neuroinflammatory outcomes at middle age in a rat model of Alzheimer’s disease risk as well as with a human dataset.

 

Beyond research, I proudly serve as a Trainee Lead at both the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Institute of Gender and Health and the Women’s Health Research Cluster (WHRC). In these roles, I work towards communicating the importance of integrating sex and/or gender into research as well as the value of prioritizing women’s health research.